I rarely come across British English words in my everyday reading which I do not know, I suppose not surprising as I’ve been an avid reader for much of my life since I was three years old. However, looking up a word – which I’d come across recently – in the on-line Oxford dictionary I found myself subscribing to its ‘word a day‘ service. Fascinating!

So far it seems I’m given a word I do not know, or the meaning of which I cannot deduce, about once every five to ten days; sometimes that the word can also be heard spoken is helpful when the pronunciation is not obvious (to me).

Spiderlings and carlins

A recent word the meaning of which could be easily deduced was ‘spiderling‘ – a baby spider – though I’d never heard it before. Today’s word, ‘carlin‘, I’d never met and I hadn’t any idea what it could mean. It means ‘witch‘, deriving from Middle English, in turn from Old Norse – ‘kerling’ meaning an old woman. What I find particularly interesting is that the Old Norse word means ‘old woman’, even just ‘woman’ without the supernatural powers. However, so often have old women, especially those bent and wizened, been regarded as witches!

Most popular words

Looking at the five words said to be the most popular in the world at the moment, I was surprised to see ‘POV‘ given as the most popular: surely it’s an acronym – ‘point of view’ – which I do not regard as a ‘word’, but maybe I’m out of step here. No surprise to see ‘retweet‘ in second place (one reason I’ve abandoned twitter). Other surprises are ‘lughole‘ though its meaning is well known to tykes like me – ear – though we’d pronounce it “lug’ole”. ‘Alguacil‘ in third place is surprising until you remember that Spanish is becoming the most used language on the planet; I can think of no explanation for ‘cytopenia‘ being in fourth place unless it’s because of frequent use in medical journals as a result of discussions about cancer.

For those of you who do not know the Oxford Dictionary service, if you subscribe to it you get an email each day with the ‘word of the day’ and clicking on the word takes you to the definition(s) and pronunciation.

It’s not really surprising I had not come across ‘carlin’ as it’s Scottish, not English, but the two words – spiderling and carlin – prompted me to dash off the following bit of doggerel.

There once was a spiderling spinning his webBut just when his keeness was starting to ebbAlong came a carlin with her sharp besom broomIntent on a rare cleaning of her dark, dingy roomCruelly dashing our spiderling’s hope of ever being a web-spin celeb.

Following what we deemed to be the ‘success’ of our winter story-telling in Ilkley Library last year we (our writers’ club, Writing on the Wharfe) repeated the exercise last Saturday but with Spring/Easter stories. Three of our new members were performing for the first time. There were some great stories, poems and a song – or two.

A chat with one of our new members in the pub showed me the path the protagonists in my ‘long short story’ might take and an ‘event’ in the park gave me an idea of how they might reach their destination, whatever that might be (I’ve written the beginning and the end, though it’s all in draft so could change).

I hope that I might receive some of the contributions from other members so I can post them somewhere so you can see them, but in the meantime I can only post mine, below, prompted by a comment from a member when planning, that “children should be introduced to new words”.

Maleficently

“I’m really fed up, cooped up here in the dark.” The voice was muffled in the cramped space.

“Oh be quiet, we haven’t been in here for very long, not a day yet, and we’ll be out soon then you know what will happen, don’t you? You’ll really have something to complain about.” The answering voice was very close, a soft, calming voice even if it was telling him off.

“Well, I wish I could at least see you. You do have a lovely voice.”

“That’s nice, thank you. So, would you like me to sing you a song to pass the time?”

“Oh yes please, I’d love that.”

“OK, now let me see, let me see … oh yes …

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great —”

“No, no, no, stop! Not that one, please, anything but that one.”

“I’m sorry, it’s the only one I know. What else could I do? Oh yes, would you like a limerick instead? I know a limerick, in fact I just made it up.”

“OK, I’d rather hear you sing but if you only have that song. You do have such a beautiful voice.”

“Well, I’ll try to sing-song it. Here goes …

“There once was an egg called Humpty
Very good looking but dumpty,
He sat in a box
Protected from shocks
Till he sat on a wall and —”

“Woah, stop, it’s going to be as bad as your song for sure!”

“Oh dear. How about a haiku then?”

“What’s a hi coo? Something a pigeon says?”

“No silly, it a very short Japanese poem, just three lines.”

“Alright, go on then, but nothing about sitting on a wall this time, please.”

“Right, let me see …

“sitting in the dark
humpty met girl in a box
fell in love right there”

“That’s not a poem, it doesn’t rhyme.”

“A haiku doesn’t rhyme, it just has five syllables, then seven syllables, then five syllables. Lots of poems don’t rhyme. Do you know what a syllable is?”

“Of course I know what a syllabub is. My mum makes them all the time. Do you think I’m —”

A sudden burst of bright light, and excited voices of children, interrupted:

“Oh yes, they look perfect, I think I’ll choose this one, it’s a nice pale colour so I can paint it,” said one of the children, a girl about seven years old, as she carefully lifted her selection out of the box and put it in a white egg cup.

“The one next to it looks good for me,” said another voice, a boy about the same age. He lifted the adjacent egg out of the box and put it, not so carefully, into another egg cup next to the first one.

“Be careful,” said the girl, “you’ll break it if you’re so rough. So, what are you going to do with yours? Something nice for Easter?”

“I’m going to make it into Darth Vader, all black, with a big laser gun blasting everything to pieces.”

“Why do you always have to make everything nasty. I bet you don’t even know what maleficent means, do you?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just the name of the wicked queen in Sleeping Beauty. I like her, she’s got horns, which is perfect.”

“It does so mean something, it means something doing evil or harm to someone else. Do you really want that for Easter?”

“Of course I do,” the boy said, drawing the sword from the belt of his red soldier’s uniform and brandishing it wildly.

“Oh do be careful, it’s you that’s maleficent, not the egg. I’m going to make mine into Humpty Dumpty, with red trousers and a big smile.”

“Did you hear that?” the soft voice said, “I’m going to be a wicked queen and you’re going to be Humpty Dumpty. You know what happened to him don’t you?”

“I don’t care, it’s just nice to be next to you again and to see you. You’re just as beautiful as your voice”.

Before an answer could be made both eggs were lifted out of the egg cups and the children were working busily with paintbrushes, the girl with red, the boy with black. Soon they had finished, a jolly Humpty Dumpty in one egg cup, a menacing black queen with plasticine horns in the other.

“Come on, let’s go and hide them for the egg hunt,” said the girl, picking up Humpty Dumpty and running outside, followed by the little soldier with his dark queen.

“Let’s hide them behind the holly bush, you know, on that wall. They won’t be easy to find there, especially as it’ll be a bit prickly to get in there,” shouted the boy as he ran towards his chosen spot. The girl squeezed in behind him, placing Humpty Dumpty carefully on the wall. “Hooray,” cheered the boy. Drawing his sword and, waving it about, he knocked Humpty down, where he lay on the ground, his smile still beaming up at the children but his red trousers in a dozen small pieces.

“Don’t worry, I’ll fix him” said the boy as the girl began to cry.

“Don’t be stupid,” the girl blubbed through her tears. “If all the king’s soldiers and all the king’s men couldn’t do it, one stupid little soldier isn’t going to do it. I’ll go and make another, but you just go away, right away.” Stamping on the smile as she squeezed out of the space, she ran into the house and slammed the door firmly shut.

Now, If you looked very, very carefully at the evil queen up on the wall, you might have seen her smiling – maleficently!

Now children, I’ll let you into a secret, maleficently isn’t a word. I just made it up. But I think it’s a good word for the kind of smile you might see on that bad queen’s face, isn’t it? Can you say it? So, how did the queen smile? – MA – LE – FI – CENT – LY.

In the first I found a ‘limerick challenge’. Madeleine gives a first line and the challenge is to complete the limerick. In the second a cook who likes to make a mess.

Struggling with my first attempt at a short story the limerick came pretty easily:

Rueful limerick:

A fellow was starting to rueRe-doing his story anewThe words wouldn’t comeHe was almost struck dumbAnd he knew that a few wouldn’t do.

My favourite cake:

Reine de Saba (this is a chocolate and almond cake, thanks to Mastering the art of French cooking, the book from which I Iearned to cook).

8inch cake tin, 1.1/2in deep. Butter and flour the tin.

Melt 4oz good plain chocolate with 2tbl rum or coffee (I go for half and half) over very hot water.

Cream 1/4lb of castor sugar with 1/4lb of softened butter, until they are a pale yellow, fluffy mixture.

Beat in three egg yolks until well blended.

Beat the three egg whites with a pinch of salt until there are soft peaks. Sprinkle on 1 tbl castor sugar and beat until there are stiff peaks (a copper bowl makes this much easier).

Blend the melted chocolate into the butter and sugar mixture using a ‘rubber’ spatula, then stir in 2oz of pulverized almonds (pulverize the almonds at top speed in a liquidiser for about 30 secs) and ¼ tsp almond extract.

Sift 2oz of fine cake flour.

Fold in a quarter of the egg whites.

When partially blended sift on a quarter of the cake flour and continue folding, then another ¼ of the egg whites. Fold in egg whites and flour alternately until all is used.

Turn the mixture into the cake tin, pushing the mixture up to the rim (so there’s a dip in the centre).

Bake in the oven at 350degF for about 25 mins. The cake is done when 2.1/2in to 3in around the rim are set so that a needle comes out clean but the centre moves slightly when the tin is shaken and the needle comes out of the centre oily.

Allow the cake to cool for 10 mins, run a knife around the edge of the tin and reverse the tin onto a rack. Allow to cool for an hour or two.

I like it just like this, but you can cover it with chocolate butter icing and make a design on the icing with almonds.